captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> the following is a pbs election event. funding for this program was provided by: >> ifill: good evening, and welcome to special pbs "newshour" coverage of the first presidential debate between president barack obama and former governor mitt romney. i'm again ifil. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. tonight's debate will be moderated by our own jim leerer and will start a little over a minute from now, from the magness arena. >> after the debate we'll talked to arrow shapiro and scott horsily in denver, and christina bellantony. >> woodruff: you can follow along online on our live stream and live plog. two very quick thoughts from mark and david. mark, it come downs to this. >> in a rare race it's become increasingly a referendum on the challenger rather than the incumbent. can the challenger mitt romney make this a referendum on the president. >> who has the toughest job? >> romney. maybe jim lehrer. format i love. much more demanding on jim but better for us. >> ifill: we're looking forward to what jim has to say tonigh
